"Show In Finder" won't open a new finder window

The "Show In Finder" action isn't working on Mac OS X Mountain Lion. The problem has just started to occur all the time, before it was a bit sporadic, but now it happens all the time.

Things that don't work:

• In the chrome Downloads page clicking any of the "Show in Finder" links.
• Right clicking a file in XCode and choosing "Show in Finder"

Things that work:

• open . in terminal
• command-n after command tabbing to Finder.

Things I've tried to fix the issue:

• Opt - Right Click finder in the dock and relauching
• Restarting my computer

Anybody ever experienced this issue?

Solution 1:

It is a bug introduced by Apple in 10.8.2.

Workaround: when it happens, in Terminal run the following:

sudo killall -KILL appleeventsd

Alternatively, use Activity Monitor to kill appleeventsd. More information on the issue.

Solution 2:

I had to delete the lockfile also:

rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist
rm ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist.lockfile

and then restarting the finder (or you can reboot):

killall Finder